The debates on the Home Rule Bill suggested to Punch a contrast between 1906 and 1914, the efforts of the Liberals to improve the situation having only resulted in turmoil, discontent and bitter recrimination. The third reading was carried on May 25 by 351 votes to 274, Mr. William O'Brien having cheerfully remarked that the Bill, if it became an Act, would be born with a rope round its neck. Heated discussions took place over the refusal of the Government to disclose the details of the Amending Bill. The Speaker had invited Mr. Asquith to supply further particulars, as the Opposition had insistently demanded, but, according to Punch, the Premier's luminous and courteous response did not add a syllable to the information already vouchsafed, whereupon Mr. Bonar Law had asked the Speaker to "let the curtain be rung down on a contemptible farce." The third reading of the Welsh Disestablishment Bill had been carried a week earlier; the Plural Voters Bill passed the same stage three weeks later. For the rest, the main topics which engaged attention in the House were gun-running, Suffragist outrages, and the latest amendment of the much-amended Insurance Act. "Scenes" were not infrequent, and Punch deplores the "pot-house manners" displayed by members on both sides. The emergence of the National Volunteers, a counterblast to the force enrolled by the Ulster Loyalists, added to the general disquiet, but there were no public signs of any general awakening to the impending catastrophe. Sir Percy Scott's letter on the submarine menace created a considerable stir, but Punch, like the majority of his readers, refused to treat it seriously. The efficiency of the Territorial Army as seen from the inside is illustrated in the cri de coeur ascribed to one of the rank and file during the course of the manoeuvres: "Thank 'Evin we've got a Nivy!" There is a jocular reference in mid-June to the toast "Der Tag" in German war vessels, and an unconscious prophecy in the warning of an old Lancashire lady to a young friend intending to go by an excursion to London: "Doan't thee goà to London: thee stop in owd England." On June 10, it may be added, a "Peace Centenary Costume Ball" was held in the Albert Hall in honour of the 100th anniversary of peace between Great Britain and the United States, and the lady who represented Britannia carried a palm branch instead of the customary trident.
Midsummer Madness
With the opening of July the London season was in full fling; the pleasure-hunt had never been so unbridled; midsummer madness was at its height. Society, bejewelled as never before, was given up to the cult of the Russian Ballet and the worship of Chaliapine. Punch's "Holiday Pages" make strange reading, emphasizing, as they do, the passion for amusement, freak and fancy costumes, the cinema craze and "full joy days." Punch's staff did not escape the infection, and one of them writes from a golfing resort:—
"Carpe diem"—yes, that's the motto.
"Work be jiggered!" and likewise "What ho!"
I'm not going back till I've jolly well got to!
Strauss's Joseph had been produced in June by the Russian Ballet, and lent point to "Blanche's" letter on the "Friendship Fête," an imaginary entertainment organized "to celebrate our not having had any scraps with any foreign country for some little time" by the performance of a Kamschatkan opera-ballet. The satire is effective, but it is largely unconscious or subconscious. The Smith-Carpentier fight made a greater impression on the man in the street than the murder of the Crown Prince Ferdinand at Sarajevo.
The death of Mr. Chamberlain, who, after long enforced absence from the political arena, passed away on July 2, hushed political strife for a moment. All sections were united in deploring the tragic eclipse of a great fighter and a great man who, in Punch's words, "loved his Party well but loved his country more."
Turkey appears early in the month as unready to fight Greece before the autumn, "when the ships come home." The cartoons until the last issue in July deal with the Budget and Home Rule. Mr. Asquith on July 13 announced the winding up of business; there would be no autumn session, but Parliament would reassemble early in the winter. On July 29 the chief cartoon, "What of the Dawn?" deals with the anxieties of Ireland, and the most important event chronicled in the "Essence of Parliament" was the Premier's announcement that, on the initiative of the King, a conference on the Ulster question between the British and Irish parties had been arranged to meet at Buckingham Palace.
